The Ultimate Guide to Deleting Your Digital Footprint for Complete Online Privacy
In the digital age, everything we do online—from social media posts and "likes" to online purchases—adds another data point to our digital footprint, which can then be tracked, analyzed, and connected back to our individual identities. More and more, as people have become aware of the extent to which they're being watched, they've admitted wanting to get rid of, well, everything.
Want to wipe the slate clean? Start by doing some basic cleanup. Serious about getting (nearly) off the grid? A good first step is getting rid of all but the most essential of your online accounts: Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, LinkedIn; anywhere you've signed up for a service. If you can't commit to deleting your accounts just yet, at the very least take a moment and assess what information (as in, personal details, not photos of your last vacation) is actually visible to the general public and remove whatever you can. Who knows, doing nothing for a few days might not be the end of the world. But it's definitely not in Facebook's interest. So the company started reminding people, therefore ensuring a bigger pull from the app.
VPN (like NordVPN) will change your IP address and encrypt all the traffic you send over the internet.
Understanding Your Digital Footprint
The digital footprints that we create online can generally be categorized into active and passive footprints.
Active footprints consist of the things that we put online ourselves. In other words, social media posts, websites or blog entries, and online profiles we create on various sites all reflect specific things that we want to say about our personal philosophies and backgrounds.
We create passive footprints online by simply visiting and navigating between various online sites, which generates various cookies and tracking pixels that automatically collect certain types of data from site users (such as general information on site use or information about a user’s personal device), or by having online contacts who post or share information about us.
Creating too many digital footsteps online opens us up to personal identity theft or the loss of personal device security. Or, at the very least, it could simply not go over well with future potential friends or employers.
So, given that the "out of sight, out of mind" reasoning that I mentioned before applies most of the time when it comes to explaining technology-based privacy and security risks, it is all the more important that users who are generally on the more entrusting or unsuspecting end of the spectrum when it comes to the sharing of personal information take the effort to learn to become at least a little bit more technology- and privacy-savvy.
Assessing Your Online Presence
Completing a digital audit is a key part of understanding and "doing something" about your current online situation. This means you need to understand just where "you" are located! Think social media, online shopping, and cloud document storage. There will be a large number of web locations where your personal data is stored, so create this list in order to understand the digital footprint.
Start using some tools or services to help with this process. There are lots of places where you can check up on your presence—think about finding your favorite—data brokers and search engines bring in your details. Look at this in two ways—what is the bad/good situation? Does any of this info need to be deleted/protected? This will need to be done regularly—so download the app or save the URL.
What if it only offers "SELL"? Is that bad for your reputation, or do you even care?
Understanding how the data got out there in the first place—you went through Facebook signup and clicked on the links knowing you wanted to target, but completely misread the security part—step one, work through the obvious about getting found. Go through each platform and look at the settings—down arrow > review public details / customize the list; Twitter: give yourself some protection; etc.
And just thinking about best practice:
random friendly.pro's come
random very strong only 10% (!)
random
don't-register.... use an app.ever your
stay on, or return.
Steps to Delete Your Online Presence
Personal data has entered a new frontier. Practically every online platform, from social media to e-commerce, collects and stores user data. To ensure that you do not fall into the wrong bucket, learn how to delete accounts from old platforms and sweep the internet clean of your data. This does not take long, but each platform seems to have a slightly different method of deletion (usually under settings or a quick email to customer support).
Use other data removal services for a more personal approach, complete with a comprehensive plan to follow. There will certainly be occassions where third-party sites have been used, so the data may still be stored there. In addition, some may struggle to follow through, either due to a lack of time or technical abilities and would want data removed from their digital estate anyway.
Finally, we want to draw attention to the two data privacy laws, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). These two laws allow for the “right to delete”, a rule that states that each individual at any time can request that a company deletes all of the data the company holds on the data subject.
Maintaining Anonymity Online
In the 21st century, it's more than just a good idea to protect your identity online. How can you do that? For starters, by using a virtual private network (VPN) and a secure browser, both essential elements of basic personal digital protection. Many hackers take pride in being able to find anyone based on their online activities. A VPN can take that source of pride away from them. It puts encryption and IP address shielding on your internet connection that even hackers can't break. Secure browsers look and act like ordinary browsers except for one thing: They make your privacy a priority. So, you don't have to worry about trackers, ads, or your browser history. These and other features built into modern secure browsers can create a "virtual cone of silence" that protects you from hackers and other threats.
A quick note here about passwords and your cell phone. You should be using a "strong" password for all the applications you use and websites you visit. What makes a password "strong"? One factor: That it combines upper- and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters into a password about 14 characters long. Another factor: That you don't use the same password for every other application and website you set a password for.
In addition, enable two-factor authentication (2FA) for your accounts. Even if a hacker finds out what your password is, you will have made it twice as hard for them to get into your account. The one thing that most hackers are looking for? Easy access (password) to a potential victim's (that would be you) online accounts. Why make a hacker's job even easier by not using 2FA? You would have to go out of your way not to find a tutorial on how to enable 2FA and the benefits of using it (or the disadvantages of not using it) among all the other content available on this subject on the web.
The idea behind your "new" digital identity is that you can still go online and do most of the same activities you do today. Just make an effort not to be "you" while you are doing it. Keeping a low profile while you browse the internet isn't that hard to do.
Another name for this might be "anonymous" browsing. One of the ways to use this as a privacy tool is that you don't use your real name, but a fictitious name. And, you could set up an email using that name with an email service that won't give you away. With that, you're "anonymous." Can you guess what this will do for your identity? If you are thinking this is the best thing you could do for your online privacy and security, you're correct.
Ongoing Online Reputation Management
You can't hide from your digital footprint, so start working on it now. The internet has a long and vivid memory. One day, someone will trace your digital footprint—be it a potential employer, college admissions officer, or yo-yo instructor. Be careful about what they might discover.
As an executive, you can monitor your online presence. Use Google Alerts to track instances of your name across Google's search results. You'll need a Google account for the obvious. Also, consider using a brand and social-media monitoring tool. Large companies often keep track, but you should not be the last to get on board. There exist equivalent apps, apps as close as your smart device, that make cyberstalking easy.
Regularly audit yourself and delete the looming sand of data collecting under the rug. Just like a ticking time bomb, old data is waiting to explode—don't entertain it—for reasons of security and privacy, get rid of outdated information. Delete it as part of a digital cleanse.
Continually enhance your online—and therefore, your overall professional—image. In addition to deleting bad stuff, continually create good stuff. Upload positive content, and professional endorsements will follow. Engage with others in a supportive and meaningful way. Write comments, give upvotes, likes, and shares whenever possible. Offer your endorsement, write them a recommendation, or leave a review.
Now more than ever, advertisers, malicious actors, and data miners know exactly who you are. Every click, every like, every share adds to a profile that someone will see, and that's what's scary. It's important to do a regular check of where you are on the internet because, in some cases, the accumulation of unmanaged data can quickly become overwhelming.
Take some time to sit down on a Friday night in your PJs and walk through the exercise of identifying which platforms you use, which privacy controls heavily affect how you are perceived online, and which removal tactics you use to best manage or remove old content or undesired search results. Take the time on a weekly or bi-weekly basis to inform yourself about internet security and data privacy issues by subscribing to newsletters that bring together all kinds of content from the best experts in the field. The more informed you are, the more likely you are to stay ahead of the curve and engage in best practices offline as well as online.